


Angel of Small Death

by 2Atoms



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, JUST, Romance, short but slow burn, there will be tags later but no spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:16:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Atoms/pseuds/2Atoms
Summary: When Katya decides to isolate herself in the North American wilderness for a winter, to recover from the sale of her business, the loneliness sets in very quickly.Fortunately, there's someone out on those mountains dedicated to keeping her sane.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this written for ages, and I know a similar one was just posted, but I figured I'd post this anyway. Should be finished over the next couple of days.
> 
> With a cheesy Hozier placeholder title for added crack!fic

The crackling radio of her rented Land Rover is Katya’s only company as she drives, winding up a country road and muttering threats at her phone. She hopes to god it knows where she’s going, because Katya sure doesn’t.

The evergreen trees are heavy with the year’s first snow, and Katya can’t help but wonder what possessed her to have a mid-life crisis in November. Still, it makes for gorgeous scenery, on the odd occasion she can tear her eyes away from the blessedly-gritted road to look around. The road winds through thick forest, chasing the base of a mountain, the tarmac beneath her occasionally ascending with a gradient so steep Katya’s convinced she’s going to die here.

It wouldn’t be a bad place to go, she muses. She’s just ended what will – probably – be the most successful section of her life. She’d go out on a high, just an eccentric millionaire, running from all the success she’s built for herself in the big city.

She’d thought about it a lot, the best part of her life to die. Katya had always been obsessed with legacy. She finally had one, now, a record of her life in the public consciousness. However minimally, people knew who she was. She’d made her money and set up her company, innovated what she could, sold up to the people who could carry her business, her employees, further.

The road salt keeps slipping under her tyres now, making a grinding noise and unnerving her no end. With little prior warning, her navigation tells her to make a right turn, through a narrow divide in the trees. She can’t even see the road, just trusts its there, slippery and flat under a layer of snow. Apparently, she’s reached her destination. So she crawls towards the house which she hopes exists at the end of the road, too unsure of snow tyres and ice patches to move her right foot even one degree closer to the floor.

She almost veers off the road a few times, hitting stones or slipping, kept away from the trees by nothing more than luck. She considers dumping the car and walking, but the weather will only get worse, and she’s brought a massive supply of food and warm clothes which she knows she can’t carry. Plus, she doesn’t trust her newly-bought boots to have much more purchase on the snow than the car’s tyres.

The cabin she’s been expecting eventually makes its appearance. She’s focusing so hard on the road she barely notices until she’s nose to nose with the timber exterior of the house, in a small clearing big enough to park four or five 4x4 vehicles.

The key is clenched tightly in her hand as she finally climbs out of the driver’s seat, stretching out after a few hours’ uninterrupted drive upstate. The building is exactly as she expected from the photos, aside from the foot-deep layer of snow dressing the roof and falling from the windowsills. Two-stories: a living area perched atop a garage and spare bedroom, and a balcony which Katya suspects she will never have the good-weather to use. She doesn’t mind, though, hauling her suitcases from the trunk before her hands go completely numb. She struggles to recall whether she packed gloves, or if she was too stubborn for that, insisting that the house would be fine.

She shouts out to the empty house as she crosses the threshold, just on the off-chance there’s a still a cleaner working, or a squatter hidden in one of the dark rooms. She gets no reply, as she expected, and her sigh of relief comes out as a puff of mist. The heating and lights are both off, apparently, they have been for some time, and she vows to figure those out later. For now, she just wants to get inside.

Katya’s legs shake as she unpacks, struggling from the effort of fighting to stay upright. She carries each bag inside, leaving the front door open because it's already so damn cold the cabin she might as well. It’s obvious no one has lived here in a while; when she finally figures out the garage door, its coated with spider webs and dead insects, tiny creatures trying to hide from the elements before the colder weather hit. She doesn’t bother cleaning the door, just closes it again after she’s inched the Land Rover inside, nestled it under the house away from the elements, so some distant version of herself can get her deposit on the vehicle back.

With everything done, locked inside the house alone, Katya feels a sense of freedom she hasn’t in a while. It’s not exciting or moving, it's like her strings have been cut. She wasn’t the puppet for some business, wasn’t playing to investors, wasn’t appeasing her now-gone family. She had nothing to do.

She’s reached the end of her dreams. The list of ‘things she intended to do when she had time’ lacks any of the lustre she’s imagined them to have, back when sixty hour weeks kept her tethered to a desk. She didn’t immediately want to do anything.

She needs to do something, though.

Building a fire seems like a good place to start, figuring out the log burner, which has a healthy stash of fuel down in the garage. She feels convinced the stack of wood is full of snakes, she had avoided it carefully when she climbed out of her parked car. For now, the previous resident has left a basket of wood next to the burner, so Katya manages to grapple with her lighter to start the fire.

Once the burner starts to actually generate heat, Katya places herself down in front of it, feeling the prickling of heat on the palms of her hands and drying out her face.

It doesn’t take long for boredom to seep into her bones, just the same way as the heat is, through her skin and into her joints. It pins her to the floor, her muscles aching to move but her mind insisting she should stay and enjoy some false sense of serenity. It’s not working, though. She can’t bring herself to feel peace when her mind is dying for something to do. 

She’s spent her whole life on the run from boredom, normalcy. Yet for some reason, she chose to isolate herself out here, in the middle of nowhere. She is near-enough trapped for winter, planning to be sustained by the fortnightly food deliveries she’s arranged, accompanied only by books and the limited supply of films on her laptop.

She finds the stack of books she’d been so excited to break into, some bought years ago, carefully lined up on a shelf so she could look at them yearningly above the screen of her laptop. Now, though, none of the blurbs held any appeal. The films she’d downloaded sounded crap. She’s either seen them before, or she can’t commit to investing in them.

It feels too soon to start scribbling in her new notebooks, it feels like she doesn’t have anything worth committing to paper. She decides to write down the date and ‘moved in’ – just to dedicate one book as her journal – but she closes it straight away, with nothing else to write.

She should move. Stretch out. She’d promised herself she’d try and get back into yoga. But to do yoga, she'll have to move away from the fire and lose her heat, and that’s just not appealing. Her bones ache from travel, and she’s worried she won’t be as good at yoga as she remembered.

Katya doesn’t move until she has to, stoking the fire when needed until the rumble of her stomach gives her something to do.

All the food she’s packed is boring. She hadn’t wanted to grant herself too much junk food, and now she’s regretting it. She settles on chips, sat on the boring modern sofa, staring out at the bright white of snow outside.

From the pictures she’d seen when booking the cabin, she knows the view out of that window should be of the valley next to the mountain she’s on, a gorgeous swathe of farmland and hills, the nearest dozy small town barely visible on a clear day. It’s too bright though, so she half closes the curtains, trying desperately to avoid a migraine. She can feel the headache coming, the precursor of an inevitable crash which she’s sure will last several days. There’s barely a flicker of movement outside, its so still it makes her eyes ache.

It doesn’t work though, she crawls into the bed upstairs, spends an agonising couple of hours struggling to sleep until the sun sets outside, plunging the room into darkness and letting her lie in the double bed without a pillow smothering her face to keep the light out. The hallway lights outside seem to turn themselves off, and Katya wonders if it’s because of the snowstorm, which appears sounds like it has picked back up since she closed the door all those hours ago. She doesn’t have the presence of mind to care though, too grateful for the sleep which is finally beckoning her.

The boredom feels familiar, as it envelops Katya the next day. It’s the boredom which made her excel at school, which drove her to various vices and then away from them again when they no longer seemed as exciting. The boredom had kept her away from her family, destroyed her relationships with her family, and led to heartbreak over and over with her girlfriends.

She couldn’t help it, the boredom was a part of her. It also made her a formidable businesswoman, an incredible student, one hell of a developer. The pursuit of her success had kept her from boredom, but now she had success, the boredom crushed her more strongly than ever.

She felt like she was in space, with no pressure to hold her together.

All she has is this big empty lounge, the perfectly comfortable hotel-style bedroom next door, her snowed-in car downstairs. It all feels so impersonal, minimalist furniture and white walls which are still too bright after last night’s migraine.

She spreads out her books, the few personal touches she’s brought with her to make the place feel more like home.

It still isn’t right.

She wants mess, she wanted chaos and she wanted walls covered in post-it notes and her own scribbled handwriting. She wanted to feel frustrated and to have the small joys of solving problems, everything which made her love working in the tech industry, being her own boss.

She was almost itching for a problem. A phone call telling her a server crashed and she had to fix it, that they were being hacked, or there was a bug which needed her to fix for the next few days, work herself to the bone in a caffeinated haze. Katya knew there would be nothing. She had no one who would call her. She was responsible to no one, and for no one.

Her whole second day in the cabin she walked room to room, picked things up and put them down, binge at and then forgot to eat. She couldn’t be bothered to cook anything, and yet she had entirely too much spare time.

The second day she stayed up late just for the hell of it, seeing if the late hour could drag some kind of epiphany out of her, which might make her suddenly enjoy this mind-numbing serenity. Her phone was still locked away in a suitcase somewhere, turned off and stacked atop her laptop. On principle, she couldn’t get it. She was also afraid that there might not be an internet connection. Then she would truly be screwed. Not knowing would be better.

Katya woke up sick the next day, and she was almost glad.

She had sort of expected it, the total destruction of her immune system from stress and her horrible diet.

Being sick made her feel more valid in being lazy, in not doing anything. Feeling like shit because of some microbes was far more savoury than being sick from her own mind. She had a raging headache, she couldn’t stop coughing, wondering if she might choke to death alone in the woods, but the illness took up three days.

She managed to watch films, half-heartedly, sip at tea, and feel sorry for herself.

It wasn’t the getaway she’d expected, the trip which would save her mental health and spark her next great idea, but Katya couldn’t imagine being back in New York. Sitting in her apartment with nothing to do but buy things and stare down at strangers on the sidewalk, imagining she was still heading board meetings and laughing with her employees.

She’d always claimed to hate the long days and the schmoozing and the fancy meals, but now she’d do anything to go back. To eat fancy steaks and meet the suited businessmen who were dying to impress her. To roll her eyes at a headstrong colleague, or sit through a presentation on an intern’s latest project.

When she sold the company, the contract told her she had to stay out of the tech industry for six months, had to give up all her intellectual property and start from scratch.

She could comfortably retire. That’s certainly what her doctor suggested. She knew she couldn’t, though. This was hell. She might as well be dead if this was the rest of her life.

After her cold, she’s certainly well enough to do something aside from mope around and talk to herself, but Katya isn’t quite sure what to do. She settles for sitting on the couch upstairs, trying to read but never focusing, changing position every few minutes just to keep herself awake. The book was about business, the intricacies of the fast fashion industry where she’d never set foot professionally. She’d hoped it might inspire her, but it was doing quite the opposite. She found herself staring out into the endless white-covered fields beyond her window, instead of learning about clothes manufacture or whatever the author felt was important enough to publish. _Is this really it?_ is all she can think. _Is this really where retirement takes me?_

She lived for the chase, the bustle and the excitement of the city. A stressful job had kept her grounded, and she found she couldn’t enjoy floating free. The book was heavy in her hands, so she just put it down.

“What do I do?”

She’d started muttering to herself. That wasn’t new, but it was usually for problem-solving. To talk out loud and get an issue resolved in her own mind. Now, she was worried this was the start of her descent into madness. Talking into an empty room just so she remembered how to speak. She wanted to scream, cry, yell for help and see if it might trigger an avalanche. It’s not like there was much else in her schedule.

Katya had never heard the doorbell of this cabin before, hadn’t even noticed there was one. But when it rings distantly from the downstairs entryway, Katya almost falls over her own feet to open the door.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a woman stood outside, in a thin coat and a big fluffy white hat, pulled down to cover her ears.

She looks flawless, like she hasn’t been stood out in the snow for long. There are still snowflakes in her hair which haven’t melted, her fresh face is only just turning pink from the cold.

Because it is freezing outside, and there’s a pretty woman here to speak to her, Katya ushers her inside immediately. Neither of them says a word until the heavy front door is slammed shut, and the stranger takes off her hat, seemingly nervous as she avoids eye contact. All Katya can notice is how her hair still looks perfect – only slightly mussed by the hat she’s removed – and how her coat is nowhere near thick enough to cover the curve of her chest.

“Hi!”

Katya cringes at the sound of her own voice, so desperate and happy, and nowhere near the level of chill she normally tried to greet pretty women with. She almost wanted to go and change, out of her yoga pants and sweatshirt which had definitely been slept in, discarded, and then scooped off her bedroom floor that morning.

The woman looks equally shocked at Katya’s voice, wide blue eyes watching her cautiously. Katya wonders how old she is, a fully grown woman with the fear and wonderment of a child.

“What’s your name?” Katya tries. She hasn’t even gotten a word out of this woman yet, and it was a little unnerving.

“Oh, um, Trixie.”

Trixie finally remembers to smile, giving Katya the acknowledging look she’d expected when she first opened the door. Katya smiles back. She intentionally withheld her own name, not easily trusting of strangers who might be journalists or gold-diggers or murders. Trixie looks trustworthy enough, though. And Katya doubts anyone knows or cares where she is. Still, old habits.

“What can I do for you, Trixie?”

“I, uh, just wanted to welcome you to the area.”

Trixie is still smiling, like she has a joke Katya isn’t aware of.

“Oh! I brought you these!”

Apparently, Trixie has been wearing a backpack, a small and peachy-pink in contrast with her thin white coat, because she retrieves from it an old biscuit box. Katya takes it cautiously, relieved when it contained freshly-baked cookies. They’re chocolate chip, bakery-perfect, and still warm.

The woman is holding her backpack in front of her with both hands, anxiously watching Katya’s face for judgement. Katya smiles back at Trixie.

“Do you want to come upstairs?”

*

Katya hasn’t used the dining table yet, so far she’s preferred to eat her snacky meals lounging on the bed or slouched on the cabin’s loveseat. She makes an exception for Trixie though, offering her tea and plating up the cookies in an entirely ridiculous way, just to seem like a civilised human being.

“Tell me about yourself,” she asks Trixie, reaching for a cookie. The woman mirrors her, taking a cookie herself and just holding it.

“Uh… I live nearby. I’m…”

She seems to be struggling, taking deep breaths between each word.

Katya tactfully cuts her off, hoping she can switch to ask the girl a slightly easier question. She’s kicking herself internally. Years of talking to executives and sociopathic CEOs, and she’d forgotten how to have a normal conversation.

“These cookies are amazing! Did you make them?”

Her sentences are punctuated with moans and spoken around a mouthful of the cookies. Trixie giggles.

“Yeah! Family recipe.”

“It’s amazing,”

Katya’s excited to have Trixie talking, smiling even, and watches eagerly as she takes a bite of her own biscuit. She racks her brains for normal questions.

“From your mom, or?”

It’s taken Katya this long to notice a slight lilt to Trixie’s voice which she can’t place. She thinks it might be Canadian, or even European, but she doesn’t want to ask.

“My whole family bakes! I don’t seem them much anymore, but baking reminds me of them.”

Trixie’s tone is light, but Katya can hear a painful story behind her words. All she can do is offer her own sympathy.

“Same. My parents are gone now, but I’ve got fond memories of cooking with dad.”

She tries to shrug off her past the same way Trixie did, but her voice is thick with tears. The loss of her parents wasn’t recent, but she’d never had to handle it before. Too busy working on the latest project at work. Trixie, blessedly, found her a distraction.

“So what are you doing out here?”

Trixie really looks like she cares, watching Katya’s face intensely, with more confidence than Katya would have thought possible when they first met.

“I’m just getting away. Finally sold my company. I’m having a… break before I decide what to do next.”

“A sabbatical?” She offers.

“Exactly. A sabbatical.”

And suddenly Katya’s telling Trixie everything. All about how she wanted this trip to detox, and she’s been too married to her work like she's a middle-aged woman in a rom-com, and she’s not really sure she likes it anymore.

She keeps everything about her actual work vague, wary of Trixie googling her, or suddenly recognising her from the scant few magazine articles she’d had at the height of the company’s success. Still, it is nice to tell someone, to let the words escape from where they’ve been piling up in her brain for the past weeks.

The other woman nods patiently, not trying to force any details out of Katya. She’s a good listener. Trixie quietly asks her how she’s doing now, and Katya almost breaks down.

“I guess I always just lived for the chase, for the excitement. It’s weird being out here, in the quiet. I’m not sure it’s for me.”

Trixie nods, all understanding and kindness, clasping one of Katya’s slender hands in her own. Trixie’s warm and big and comforting. Being wrapped in her hands is the first physical contact Katya’s had since that handshake that ended her career, and Katya almost jolts away on reflex.

  
Trixie doesn’t really offer any information about herself. She’s vague when Katya asks her about where she lives, her job, hints at whether she has a ‘significant other’. But she’s such a good listener, and she’s funny, so Katya doesn’t mind.

She trusts that Trixie genuinely has no interest in Katya’s money or business secrets, so she spills to her like she’s a therapist. Trixie keeps up with her completely, gives her the best advice without being condescending. Trixie’s the one who makes their third cups of tea, while Katya composes herself after a discussion about her parents, and she finds the right cupboard for everything first time. It’s almost creepy how easily Katya could imagine her staying here. She almost mentions the second bedroom, hidden away downstairs, before decided she definitely wouldn’t want Trixie to be staying in a separate bed to her.

*

When the sun starts to set, her heart wrenches at the idea of Trixie leaving. They’ve been talking for hours, and every second felt like the funniest and the most healing Katya’s had in this cabin. Period.

“Come back soon! Please! I’m going crazy in here.”

Katya’s not joking, and Trixie can tell, but she giggles along anyway.

“I’m not sure if I can, snowstorm and all.”

Trixie puts her stupid hat back on as she talks, and Katya suddenly notices she never took her coat off. Apparently, people are more built for the elements, this far into the mountains. Katya would’ve been sweating bullets, sat next to the wood burner in that thing.

Trixie heads downstairs, reaching out for the door handle. Katya chases after her, all pretence of ‘not sounding desperate’ lost.

“Oh, maybe I could visit you?”

“I wouldn’t want you to get injured. Maybe in the spring, when everything’s melted out.”

Trixie’s trying to appease her, and Katya can feel a brush off when she gets one. She should respect it. Normally she could, but she’s not letting go of this wonderful, weird woman if she can help it.

“Please. It would mean the world to me to see you again.”

Trixie blushes but she doesn’t reply, just heads for the door, seemingly affected by Katya’s words but unwilling to bend. She doesn’t want to see Katya again.

“Can you at least give me your number?” Katya’s almost begging, scrambling desperately for a pen and paper.

Trixie shakes her head, and a blast of cold air hits Katya. She doesn't even bother to come up with a lie. Katya respects that.

“Goodbye, Katya. Look after yourself.”

Then she’s gone. Katya can’t even see her out of the windows, by the time she’s ascended to the top floor to watch.

Her parting words were fond, well-meaning, almost loving. They were also firm, and final. Like a death kneel for this newly forming friendship, relationship, whatever. Katya can’t help crying as she replays them in her mind, long after Trixie’s left her alone again, the door softly clicking closed behind her.

It’s almost a day later that Katya realises she never gave Trixie her name.


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s only your job to make her as happy as possible for these last few months.”

Bianca is striding around the clearing, totally unaffected by the cold, wings beating the air around her. Trixie hates when she does that: moves like she’s about to take off. Trixie’s own wings are folded against her back, just tall enough that she could rest her face against the soft feathers whilst Bianca goes on yet another rant.

She’s talking about honour, a duty to the history of their people, the meaning of the word ‘guardian’, but Trixie can’t bring herself to give a shit.

“We have a duty, Beatrix. You have to maintain a level of professional detachment. We all do.”

The only thing Trixie can do to annoy Bianca is looking disinterested, and so she does. She stares into the middle distance until the older angel snaps her fingers rudely in front of Trixie’s nose.

“I only asked if I could let her see me.”

“Yes, well. You already know the answer to that, don’t you.”

Bianca huffs, and Trixie has to try not to laugh. She knows getting seen is a serious violation of her job, but she just doesn’t care. She’s watched so many charges, she doesn’t need Bianca to remind her of the rules.

Bianca stops walking suddenly, twists herself around to face Trixie with a sigh.

“You already did, didn’t you.”

“Did what?” Playing dumb was something else that pissed Bianca off, and Trixie excelled at it.

“Let her see you.”

“A bit, yeah. It was an accident.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

Trixie shrugged.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t let it happen again.”

Bianca gives her a withering look. One which says she knows there’s nothing she can do to stop Trixie, short of removing her from Katya’s case. Call it nepotism, but she knew Bianca couldn’t bear the idea of firing her own cousin. Trixie looks back at the cabin Katya lives in wistfully, ignoring the daggers Bianca is shooting her.

“Yeah.”

*

Katya can’t stop thinking about Trixie. She’s starting to wonder if she made her up. If the damp snow boot-prints on the carpet downstairs were her, in some sort of insane episode, when she invented a crush for herself.

She was perfect. She was everything Katya needed, short of a fuck.

All the little discrepancies – Trixie knowing her name, not giving any details about herself – they all start to add up.

It breaks Katya’s heart, too. To know this perfect woman was either invented by her own imagination, or so freaked out by Katya that she opted to never return. When she frantically looks for the cookie tin and fails to find it, Katya starts packing.

Maybe she’ll check herself in somewhere, have everyone put it down to the millionaire who went mad with grief at the loss of her company. Certainly, there were people who never thought she was sane in the first place. She’d always considered herself kooky, weird, but this was a whole new level of crazy that she wasn’t prepared to handle. Maybe this was how she’d spend the second half of her life. Spend all her money on medical treatment and die alone, broke.

She decides to only pack the stuff she cares about. The cleaning charge to move everything else seems like a fine price to pay. Katya second guesses herself only once, staring out at the bright blue sky. It’s finally stopped snowing, but the roads are probably lethal. She thinks staying here, with a deteriorating mental state, would be worse.

There’s a silly part of her brain which can’t believe she’d make Trixie up. That she’d put those footprints in the hallway and drink from two tea mugs and not remember doing it. She’d felt the press of Trixie’s hands on hers. Listened to that lilting accent and stared into those blue eyes. Trixie’s hat had definitely been left discarded on her sofa, and Katya wasn’t going mad.

But it was an excuse to leave, and deep down, Katya knew that was all she wanted.

When she wrenches open the garage door, huffing from the effort and coughing as the cold wind hit her lungs, Katya almost slams it shut again.

Trixie’s standing out there. She’s wearing the same coat, without her hat. Her breath is making fog appear, her shoes are crunched into the snow, and she’s looking right at Katya.

Her bags are already in the trunk. Katya should just go. She can probably drive straight through Trixie, this strange figment of her imagination who appeared and disappeared whenever she damn well felt like it.

“You’ve got to stay here.”

Trixie shouts, but she doesn’t need to, Katya was barely twenty feet away.

“What? Why?”

“The roads are dangerous.” 

Katya knows. She almost tells the other woman she doesn’t care if the roads are dangerous, that she thinks staying here alone might be more dangerous. She’s almost worried about how easy it would be to change her mind, with Trixie there watching her. 

Trixie is walking closer, speaking at a normal volume this time. Katya finds herself backing away. 

“You’re not real.”

The look of puzzlement she expects doesn’t materialise on Trixie’s face. Instead, her features stay relaxed. She walks into the garage, herding Katya side, and pulls the overhead door closed behind her.

“Let’s go inside.”

Katya almost runs.

She isn’t sure if she’s afraid of Trixie, she is certainly confused by her.

“Why are you back here?”

“’ Wanted to see you.” 

Trixie shrugs, sits herself down on Katya’s sofa and runs her hands over the material.

“Can I… touch you?”

Katya cringes as soon as she heard the words, rushes to redeem herself as Trixie stares at her, confused.

“I just… I thought you might not… y’know…”

“Be real?” Trixie offers, raising an eyebrow. Katya stares at her shoes, mutters out an embarrassed, ‘yeah.’

“Sorry, I’ve just being having a weird time, since I got here.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’m glad to see you again.”

Katya feels like a child, like she’s been scolded. She’s also a little confused over being gaslit by her own brain.

“You too.”

*

Katya’s not sure if she’ll see Trixie again after this, so she tries her very best to impress. She cooks Trixie dinner, and the woman doesn’t seem to eat much, but she certainly enjoys cooking with Katya.

They don’t have any music, but they manage to chat to fill the space. Both cut off from the news, apparently, they just tell stories. Katya thinks she catches Trixie looking at her oddly sometimes.

There’s a certain melancholy that follows the woman. It just makes Katya work harder for each laugh, running joke after joke until Trixie’s wheezing for breath, doubled over with a spatula in hand.

Katya cries while cutting onions, and Trixie laughs at her – unaffected herself – drawing her in for a joking hug. Katya can’t help it, she wraps both arms around Trixie’s waist tightly, clings onto her for dear life.

Trixie won’t let them eat the spaghetti Bolognese sat on the couch, insists on the table because she’s clumsy, and Katya doesn’t mind. She sits opposite Trixie, watching her struggle to cut up the pasta and eat it any way other than messily.

Eventually they both give up, laughing at each other and at themselves for choosing spaghetti as a first date meal. The words ‘first date’ spill from Trixie’s mouth, and they almost make Katya swoon.  
She won’t stay the night, but Trixie agrees to come back again tomorrow, and that’s more than Katya could have dreamed for just a few hours earlier. She unpacks her car with elation, determined not to overthink their second meeting like she did the first. Katya hadn’t sketched in years, but she spends the remainder of the evening trying to recreate Trixie’s laugh lines in graphite.

*

They spend then next afternoon doing largely the same thing. Trixie shows up around midday, arms full of baking ingredients and still wearing that same coat. The hat is back, too, and she asks Katya to take it off for her as she crosses the cabin's threshold, messing up her hair adorably. Katya gives her blonde curls a ruffle just for the hell of it, they're already messed up, and Trixie justgroans at her, handing over the ingredients to Katya before chasing her up the stairs.

It feels like the cookies take hours to make, just because they keep getting distracted. Trixie's 'old family recipe' ends up tasting nothing like yesterday's sugar cookies, but its pretty good anyway. And Katya can't be bothered to frost them, so they just sit dipping them in icing, and Katya laughs ever single time Trixie gets frosting on her face, wipes it off for her as tenderly as she can manage.

Once again, Trixie leaves about an hour after sunset. It makes Katya worried, every single time, but Trixie just hushes her. She knows these woods, and she's a big girl, she'll be fine.

Katya wishes she had a phone. Wishes they could text nonstop, or that she could spontaneously ask Trixie over sometimes. Katya's always found it a little easier to flirt through a screen. It's high pressure, intense, doing this the old fashioned way. She doesn't totally mind, though. Trixie says she'll be ack again tomorrow, and Katya demands a time. 

"So I can count down the hours."

*

It’s not in Katya’s nature to take anything slow. When her third date with Trixie arrives, the next afternoon, she would already be completely accepting of a proclamation of love from the other woman. She still barely knows anything about Trixie’s past, how she lives, even where she lives. She just knows how the woman makes her feel, and that she treats Katya with nothing but kindness and respect whenever she crosses over the snowy threshold of the cabin. She knows she misses her the second she walks away, that she thinks and thinks about every joke and smile Trixie’s made when she’s laying in bed at night.

She hasn’t even gotten off to the thought of Trixie’s blonde curls and chubby cheeks, feeling it would cheapen the only new relationship she’s had for years. She reckons Trixie’s about 25, that maybe her rural upbringing made her seem less intense and outgoing than the standard Tinder date from the city. Maybe that’s what she liked, the way Trixie wasn’t the same as all her mayfly exes. She wasn’t an accountant or a lawyer, or a journalist or a secretary. Every model and influencer she’d swiped back couldn’t hold a candle to the way Trixie looked with her cheeks flushed from the cold, how she looked at Katya with Bolognese sauce staining her mouth on their first date.

She wishes she had a bigger gallery of memories to draw from, that they had in-jokes and the intimacy to cuddle up on a couch together, to ignore movies they’ve watched together a hundred times. When Katya takes a slow, slippery morning hike, she wishes she could teasingly ask Trixie to rub her feet, only to be elated when Trixie actually does it. 

She cleans her entire cabin for no reason. It’s barely dirty, just the odd boot mark and limescale stain on the shower glass. She makes her bed carefully, with clean sheets, just in case. It feels silly, how her stomach tightens at the idea Trixie might, somehow, come to appreciate her efforts. She takes the longest shower’s braved at the cabin so far. Granted, the hot water does run out eventually, but it's cathartic nonetheless, to fully wash her head and body as lavishly as she can, to get out shivering and still brave the cold so she can moisturise every inch of her skin, just in case Trixie might get the chance to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last update for today, the next few chapters just need beta'ing then theyre good to go!


	4. Chapter 4

Katya’s going to die in exactly 5 months from today.

Trixie doesn’t know how. All she knows is the timer ticking down in the back of her mind, that it doesn’t appear Katya knows anything to be wrong. She’s constantly checking Katya for symptoms of anything. Each sniffle, each innocuous stumble as she’s wandering the woods or running up the stairs too fast, it makes Trixie almost appear to her from her invisible lookout. Her heart thumps in her chest, wondering if Katya is meant to spend the next 5 months in a coma, or something equally dark. It’s not like every other case, either. Granted, she’s shed a tear over every single lonely soul she’s accompanied, but this time is different.

Already, after just weeks of knowing her, she can tell this will be the worst death of her career. Even now, she wants to beg Katya to be careful, force her to see a doctor every day of her life, stay away from cliff edges and the boulders she likes to scramble over. She wants to push Katya into a hot bath and then make sure she doesn’t somehow drown. Trixie wants to wrap her up in her cabin’s stupid quilt blanket like its bubble wrap, so she can’t get hurt.

It feels like a violation to be watching her now, preparing for a date with Trixie herself. Slathering herself in body lotion, emerging from the bathroom wrapped in a towel with a cloud of steam behind her, skin reddened and face relaxed. It’s gorgeous. Although she almost wishes she didn’t have to keep an eye on her, as easy as Katya was to watch. Her heart jolts even more with every smile from the woman, with every stupid little dance move and hummed lyric.

Katya puts on a full face of makeup, makes faces at herself in the mirror, smudges her makeup, and scowls. Trixie giggles to herself, so glad Katya can’t hear her.

Trixie wishes Katya would act like that in front of her, knowing Trixie was there and not caring at all, so comfortable she didn’t feel an ounce of self-consciousness.

Trixie had worried Katya would be cold-hearted, difficult to look over, when she first arrived. From the woman’s robotic unpacking, the way she was almost crying as she couldn’t sleep, Trixie had initially struggled to see a single redeeming feature in Katya. A stranger who she was seeing at the absolute worst of her humanity. But Bianca was damn right. Trixie’s heart was too big, and as Katya’s stress melted away, her personality emerged. A personality that had her crying over movies, eating awful snacks alone, sliding around the wooden floors in socks, scaring Trixie half to death every time she slipped and laughed at herself.

Katya was too endearing to her, now. She wants to spend all her time with her, sliding around on the wooden floor together, watching awful movies. 

Every moment they get together is tainted by this knowledge Trixie has. Haunted by the tick-tock of a pendulum in the back of her mind, counting down until Katya’s demise. The noise is one which keeps her from sleeping, makes her watch Katya for every snore and mumble in her sleep, every turn of a page or confused scrunch of her face as she’s reading. God, it’s beyond endearing, and its making Trixie forget every oath she’s ever sworn not to interfere.

She knows that, for some angels, the ticking is a comfort. They can’t sleep without it, they need the comfort of being needed by a human, somewhere. Trixie can’t disentangle it with death. She wonders if it's more peaceful in Katya’s mind, unaware of her death.

Trixie would’ve been late for their date if she hadn’t noticed Katya panicking. She’s been absentmindedly staring out of Katya’s window, inside the house so she can hear if Katya manages to throw herself down the stairs, somehow. 

She doesn’t have a broken neck, but Katya is pale white, sat at the table propping her chin up with a hand, harshly scratching at her arm with the other one.

Checking the kitchen clock, Trixie realises she’s two minutes late for their date. It’s totally normal, Katya can’t begrudge her that lateness, especially in the middle of nowhere. Katya’s clock might not even be right. But something has gotten into her, and Trixie has to remember not to just appear on the spot. She’s outside the front door instantly, ringing the doorbell and hoping Katya will at least give herself time to calm down before tearing down the stairs.

It’s so endearing, to see the difference between public-Katya and private-Katya. Trixie wishes she could date Katya normally, though. Wishes she could be surprised by each one of Katya’s private quirks, let Katya choose when to reveal them, show Katya hers.  
Trixie isn’t even sure what her quirks _are_. She’s new to this. It’s so _human_ – but she wants all of Katya so desperately. She doesn’t care if she isn’t supposed to, she wants someone. And to Trixie, Katya seems worth the risk of losing her status.

When the door opens, Trixie’s not even paying attention. She’s too lost in her thoughts, she’s certain there must be an unguarded, wistful look on her face. Katya looks frazzled, there’s still a shadow of red under her chin from where it was aggressively pressed against her hand, and Trixie tries not to stare at the faint scratch marks on her arm. She wants to hug Katya close to her chest, but instead she offers her a surprised smile.

“Hi!” she doesn’t even wait to be invited in, she just walks in, brushing past Katya in lieu of hugging her.  
Trixie heads to the top of the stairs, trusting Katya’s following, into the comfortable, familiar space of the cabin living room. She looks around like she wasn’t just here, giving Katya the chance to compose herself.

“Deep breaths,” she wants to tell the woman. “You’re totally fine. I’m just as scared.”

What she actually does is get a pair of mugs out of the cupboard, pretend to search for the hot cocoa, then ask Katya what she wants to do next. It’s a heavy-handed hint, but Katya seems grateful for the direction. She’s standing near Trixie now, leaning against her own kitchen counter.

As Trixie watches her, Katya won’t meet her eye. She’s standing slightly hunched, both hands reddened from her grip on the countertop, rocking back and forth on her own feet.  
It’s an especially cold day, Katya’s bundled up in a big, long sweater, Trixie’s finally ditched the coat for a bulky cable knit. The house is built for the cold, but it still seeps through the cracks, under door frames and permeating the windows. It makes her want to cuddle up to Katya, hold the skinnier woman close and let her steal some of Trixie’s body heat. But Katya seems off, weirded out, as she mechanically starts to make them hot drinks.

Trixie moves out of Katya’s way, switches places with her and leans her ass against the countertop. Katya still isn’t speaking. She’d normally be incessantly chattering by now, making Trixie giggle and then fully laugh until her chest hurts. It feels weird to have her vocal cords stationary, the air quiet. Her chest just feels empty, missing that pang from losing her breath, laughing, chattering. Instead, Katya’s not even trying to be a good host to her. She’s mainly ignored her date for the evening. It’s so disconcerting to see.  
Trixie tries to start up a conversation. She’s worried about Katya.

“What’s the plan for tonight?”

For all she’s had to watch Katya, Trixie still has no idea what the woman has planned. She knows there’s food in the fridge, but it can’t be anything new or special – Katya’s last delivery of groceries was weeks ago. She didn’t want to be unreasonable, but Trixie had kind of hoped Katya would go out of her way. Do something special.  
Katya’s heating up milk, leaning over the stove, probably cursing the lack of a microwave in this place. She’s staring down at steaming milk, watching it swirl around a wooden spoon. It’s like she’s forgotten to speak. Trixie’s _so_ fucking worried.

“Katya?”

“Yeah?” Her voice is a bit weak.

Whatever’s going on in her head, she’s not in the real world.

Katya’s uncertain, playing with the heat controls on the hob, running her fingers around the edge of it. Trixie’s afraid she’ll burn herself, so she picks up Katya’s hand, weaves her fingers between the other woman’s.

“Are you okay?”

Her nails are short. They’re painted with clear polish, freshly, this afternoon. Trixie traces her fingers over those nails, wants to show Katya she’s noticed. Katya frowns down at where their hands are joined, dropping the wooden spoon to cover Trixie’s hand, getting more skin contact.

“I don’t know.”

Trixie tries to watch Katya affectionately, offering her comfort through her eyes, but it’s not working. Katya just doesn’t look at her, staring down blankly at their hands. The milk starts to burn, and

Katya doesn’t notice, so Trixie takes it off the heat, finishes making their hot cocoa. She lets Katya stir her own. It keeps her busy.

They move to the couch, where Katya folds herself up on the cushions. Trixie invites herself to sit next to Katya, wondering how the woman isn’t burning her hands on the hot mug. Even Trixie can feel how hot it is.

“What’s on your mind?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You do.”

“Yeah." 

Katya pauses, and Trixie lets her. She can imagine a million things Katya's freaking out about right now, she's just not sure which one is playing on her mind the most.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Ah.

“Here?”

“Out here. Out of the city. Stuck in the mountains.”

Katya pauses. She’s staring down at the floor, but her gaze moves to the window. She’s watching patches where the snow is thawing, revealing patches of mud and rocks. It’s sort of bleak, far less pretty than when the snow was too thick to even go outside. Trixie’s sure the snow will be back overnight, stopping Katya from leaving. It’s a damn lonely existence. 

“When I saw you again, I thought you weren’t even real. I thought I was going mad.”

Trixie holds herself still, careful not to disrupt Katya’s train of thought.

“…and I thought I was making it up. All of this. That maybe I’d gone mad back in my office. Maybe I’m sitting at my desk just losing my mind.”

“Katya…”

Finally, the other woman looks at her. She’s almost looking through her, her gaze so intense but unfocused. Trixie puts her cup of cocoa down. She takes Katya’s, too, before wrapping her own hands around the woman’s. Her palms are so hot Trixie’s sure they must feel burnt. She blows on the skin gently, hoping to ground Katya as much as soothe her reddened hands.

“I’m sorry. I’m being weird.”

“You’re not, it’s okay.”

At Trixie’s touch, Katya finally feels as present as she can be.

She’s not sure why she’s suddenly gotten so _weird_. It’s like every thought she’s had for the past weeks has come back to hit her, after all the chaos and excitement of her intense few days with Trixie.

Apparently, this is the halting point. The place where her mind won’t let her move past, won’t let her ignore any more.

Katya wishes she could pretend something wasn’t bothering her. She wishes she’d just planned a nice night in with Trixie, put out a spread of her movies and built a blanket fort, put together something rice-based and just pretended she _fine_.

Instead, Trixie’s acting like an impromptu counsellor, stopping her from burning her damn hands and settling her down on the couch. It’s almost everything she wants, a big, gorgeous woman to cuddle her and keep her safe. She wishes Trixie could do that for her, but there are so many things stopping her.

“I really like you.”

“Okay.”

Trixie doesn’t make a big deal out of it, and Katya’s so glad. The last thing she needs is that drama. But she’s also glad Trixie doesn’t refute it. She’s sure the woman wouldn’t keep trekking all the way out here, through the snow and cold, if she didn’t like Katya too, at least a little bit.

“I just don’t know what to do about it, is all.” 

Trixie looks for more clarification.

“Trixie, I don’t know anything about you. Nothing, at all. And I really like you, so it's freaking me out.”

“Okay.”

Suddenly, she’s a bit pissed off. But it's nice to feel something, so she grasps onto the pain, trying to free her hands from Trixie’s grasp on her.

“What do you mean ‘ _okay’_?”

How _could_ she? How could she ask for so much of Katya and give nothing of herself? All the little inconsistencies, the things she refused to tell Katya, it only becomes more painful as Katya caught herself getting more and more attached to Trixie.

The perfectly made bed in the other room taunts her. All that ambition, and her brain has to go and ruin it.

Trixie herself looks rightfully sheepish, lip trembling a little. She doesn’t run, though. She shuffles painfully slowly to sit cross-legged on the sofa, facing Katya.

“I haven’t been honest with you.”

There it is. The moment she breaks Katya’s heart before they’ve even properly begun, before Trixie truly gets to even know her. She can’t bear it, she nearly kicks Trixie out, but she knows there’s no way she can forgive herself if she doesn’t hear Trixie out. The curiosity would kill her.

“What is it.”

_Just tell me._ She’s thinking. Rip the bandaid off.

No noise is coming out of her mouth, she’s entirely mute, and it's driving Katya mad.

_Fucking say something._

She offers no further explanation, and Katya almost screams at her, but then Trixie strips her sweater off. And then her white t-shirt, underneath. And at first, Katya’s expecting to gasp from surprise, maybe from finally seeing Trixie in nothing but a lacy cream bra. But her eyes are drawn away from the swathes of smooth skin in front of her. Something over Trixie’s shoulder distracts her.  
She jumps up from her seat, partly for a better look, partly for some distance.

“Can you fucking fly?”

It takes everything in Katya not to run away, to beg for this to be a sick joke. She feels a bit ill, but she’s sure its just the shock. Maybe tomorrow she’ll find the wings pretty. They are kind of cute, fluffy, cream with hints of blues and pinks at the end of each long feather.

It’s like her brain can’t even process what’s in front of her.

She needs a break from looking at those wings, sprouting neatly from Trixie’s velvety skin. She sits in front of Trixie again, trying not to look anywhere near her, no matter how tempting the rest of her body looks.

“You were gonna find out eventually…”

Trixie starts, and Katya almost can’t handle how broken her voice sounds. Trixie is totally dejected, staring down at the ground like she wants to disappear. Katya doesn’t know what to say. She just sort of… waits.

“I really like you too,” Trixie whispers, like she doesn’t even want Katya to hear.

Trixie forces the cocoa into Katya’s hands, picking up her own drink and staring into it. Katya drinks. Somehow it helps her, to ground herself and feel calmer. She takes a moment to _really_ look at

Trixie, and all she has are questions.

“What are the… wings about.”

She hopes ‘wings’ is the right term. She’s not sure what else it could be.

“I’m like, an angel.” Trixie speeds through the answer, so fast Katya wonders if she's misheard. 

“ _'Like_ an angel?’” Katya parrots.

She can’t really think of her own words at the moment. Trixie corrects herself.

“I _am_ an angel. A guardian angel.” 

“A guardian angel.”

Both of them are struggling to speak, to act like people. Katya supposes it makes sense now, how awkward Trixie was. It’s all she can do to force words out.

“So can you fly?”

“No. Well, yes. But not with these. These wings are more… symbolic.”

“Okay.”

None of this is fucking okay, but Katya doesn’t know what else to do. She has no idea how powerful Trixie is. Why she’s here.

“Are you _my_ guardian angel?”

“Yeah.” Trixie looks uncomfortable, so she doesn’t push the point. None of this conversation is comfortable.

“But you are real? Yeah?”

Trixie nods. She reaches out for Katya’s hand again, just to prove she’s real, and the woman recoils once their skin makes solid contact. Katya just nods back, frowning a little bit, staring down into her cocoa. It’s lukewarm now. She still takes a tasteless sip.

Then, she looks to Katya.

“I need some time.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be right here.”

“Right.”

Trixie leaves through the front door, out of courtesy, and then places herself in the downstairs bedroom. It’s dark, Katya won't know she’s here, and she doesn’t feel like she’s intruding.

It only takes an hour before Trixie hears a distinctive call of her name. She appears outside the cabin, already rapping on the front door.

“You don’t have to knock, do you?”

“Not really, no.”

It’s not really a question that Katya asks her. It’s also not accusatory, there’s no malice there. The smallest ounce of hope finds its place in Trixie’s chest, warming her through as she steps in from the cold.

*

Katya seems to understand that Trixie can’t tell her everything. She almost doesn’t want to know. She just cares about _Trixie_ herself, not what her job is, not why she’s here. Maybe she doesn’t want that bubble burst, maybe she genuinely understands that their safety might be compromised, if Trixie says too much.

They get back to that point, though. Where they’re laughing and joking, and it's from a new familiarity, one where Trixie can be just a little more truthful and Katya can lose the sense of unease which had permeated their moments together.

“Can I kiss you, then? Now I know?”

Katya’s whispering so close to her face that Trixie can feel her breath on her. She’s not even thinking.

“You can do whatever you want to me, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last update for a few days, until I finish writing the rest of the fic and also move house.  
> Any kudos / comments on this are much appreciated - I feel like what I'm writing isn't being read much these days haha
> 
> Also! Leave any questions you have / clarifications you want! I'll put them either in replies or as details in the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

“Do whatever I want to you?” 

Trixie laughs, blushes, looks away from Katya even though they’re just inches apart.

It made Katya feel some kind of way.

“Don’t get shy now!”

“Sorry! You’re right!” Trixie smiles at her, seemingly recovered from her spell of embarrassment. “We just… don’t really do this.”

She gestures vaguely at her fluffy wings, still on show. Katya can’t help but wonder if it would hurt Trixie if she pulled them during sex. Maybe she’d be into it – like hair pulling or scratches down her back.

“Do you definitely want to do this?”

Trixie doesn’t reply, she just kisses her. Clumsy and too heavy, but so purposeful and confident Katya kisses her back as best she can, trying to coax Trixie into separating her lips until she got the hint. One hand on her jaw was enough to make Trixie freeze, and Katya pulled away, gave her space to catch her breath.

“Okay?”

Katya couldn’t stop smiling at her, all teeth and smile lines. She regrets not bothering with lipstick out in this cabin. Her usual dark red smudged around Trixie’s mouth. Short manicured nails digging into Trixie’s smooth skin. Perfect.

She teases Trixie before leading her to the bedroom, scrapes gently at her skin and licks across her lips, taunts her with words and embarasses her, makes her ask for what she wants. 

“It’s okay if you’re nervous, baby. I can see you blushing.”

Trixie likes to protest, her face tucked into Kayta’s hair, playing with the strands like she’s never felt hair before. It’s adorable. 

“‘M not nervous.” 

It’s a challenge. Katya can see it, from her smiling eyes, how they contrast to the pout on her lips. Her hair was tousled from their kissing, sticking up in a disarray Katya has never seen before. Even now, even knocked out of its curls, lopsided and wrapped around Katya’s fingers, it shines. Katya still finds herself blown away by Trixie’s beauty, by the softness of her skin and the angelic glow that seems to surround her, even on the crushed cushions of this couch.

Trixie’s still shirtless, but Katya ignores that for a while. She stays in her boundaries. Stays teasing, only giving Trixie featherlight touches across her shoulders. She lets her hands travel downwards, skating down Trixie’s arms, back up her sides to the straps of her bra, tugging and taking their weight.

Trixie’s dumbfounded, or at least playing dumb, looking between Katya’s face and Katya’s hands. Her mouth is open, breathing heavily, and Katya can’t help but kiss her again.

This time she lets herself go further, traces along the wire of Trixie’s bra before pulling at the strap, only for Trixie to reach behind herself and undo the clasp.

It doesn’t take her long to strip Katya down too, in a spurt of sudden control,and both of them are left in only their underwear on the couch.

Katya once again finds herself immensely grateful to not have neighbours.

It doesn’t take long for Kayta to pull the other woman onto her lap, Trixie straddling her waist heavily, thick thighs squashed against Katya’s bony hip bones.

Her hands are running down the lines of Trixie’s panties, touching her ass over the fabric, beginning to rub over Trixie’s pubic mound with firm, determined fingers.

“Can I take you to bed?” 

Katya's almost embarrassed to be asking, but she needs to be sure. She wants Trixie to say it.

“Please.”

Katya knows damn well she can’t carry Trixie, but there's a part of her that wants to try. She tilts her back on her hips, until Trixie finally stands, pulls Katya to her feet so they can both make the short walk.

She lays Trixie back on the bed, takes one more go at those great tits, squeezes and licks at her nipples until Trixie whines, grabs onto Katya to try and get one last kiss.

“Tell me what you want?”

Katya watches her, watches Trixie blush yet again that night. She doesn’t answer, just clutches Katya’s hand in a gesture far too sweet considering the two of them are about to fuck in Katya’s bed.

“Tell me.” 

She withdraws her touch from Trixie, making her whimper, and Katya feels herself melt yet again. Trixie’s so vocal, so emotive in her whines and grunts, Katya hopes to god that doesn’t change when her head’s between Trixie’s legs.

“Touch me.” 

Katya raises an eyebrow. She wants bratty Trixie. She wants her embarrassed, asking for exactly what she wants.

“Make me feel good.”

Vague.

“Do you want me to eat you out?”

Trixie’s eyes widen, ever so slightly, and the room’s so quiet Katya can hear her breathing in.

“Please. I… I want you to eat me out.”

Katya smiles indulgently, watches Trixie shift uncomfortably where she’d laid out on the bed, and doesn’t say another word before she obliges.

Trixie’s so pretty. She’s so loud, and she writhes like no one Katya’s ever fucked, even more after Katya threatens to tie her up ‘next time’. Everything Katya does is met with a moan, and she can only distinguish what Trixie likes most by how far open her jaw drops, how tightly she grips onto whichever part of Katya she can reach.

Just like the on the couch, Trixie desperately wants to hold Katya’s hand throughout. And whilst she’s like the extra dexterity, Katya can’t do anything other than oblige. She lets Trixie anchor herself even as Katya licks harder, sucks, takes breaks for Trixie to grind up against her face. Every break to breathe, every change of pace, makes Trixie whine. She’s such a brat, Trixie can only tease her once, getting her so, so close before, sucking a bruise onto her hip bone just as Trixie reaches the edge. 

She thinks Trixie might throw her off of her for that, almost regrets it as Trixie whines out a sob. But then, when she returns her mouth to Trixie’s oversensitive clit, barely even has to kitten lick before Trixie’s digging nails into the back of her hand, before she’s chanting for more. The only time Trixie goes silent is when she’s coming, lip bitten painfully between white teeth. Katya can only watch, barely taking in the wings squashed underneath Trixie as she comes, so enamoured with the experience of watching this beautiful woman come.

When Trixie recovers, Katya’s still there watching her. Her face is soaked in Trixie’s wetness, messy all the way up to her cheekbones, and Trixie just smiles lazily.

Trixie clambers up to kneel, matching Katya. 

“What now?” 

She’s still grinning, completely naked, wings and all.

Katya tests the water, pushes Trixie’s head down jokingly, until the younger woman finally takes the initiative. Flat on her back, knees pulled apart by firm hands, Katya can’t think about anything but Trixie’s lips.

When it’s all over, Trixie asks if she can sleep over. As if Katya, post-orgasmic and totally smitten, can give her anything but an enthusiastic ‘yes’, and offer her whichever side of the bed she wants. 

Kayta strokes Trixie’s wings, listens to her keen until she finally falls asleep, deadweight next to Katya. There’s something so soothing about Trixie’s presence. She’d noticed it before, when Trixie was over for their makeshift dates, when they sat together on her couch. Perhaps the calm made a little more sense, if Trixie was an angel, but Katya knew it went deeper than that. She slept more peacefully than she had in months, and she couldn’t just blame whatever angelic influence she felt next to this woman. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please send lots of love to my beta and co-writer, Lau, @fookoff on tumblr x


	6. Chapter 6

The day Katya’s heart gives out, she’s already in the lobby of the hospital.

Trixie hadn’t told her why they were there, asked her for trust, but as Katya coughs, collapses, Trixie kneeling beside her, she’s sure Katya understands.

Nurses rush over, Katya’s brain is without fresh oxygen for the absolute minimum possible time, and she’s out of surgery less than 12 hours later. She wakes up groggy, can barely move for the pain of her stitches, and seeks out Trixie immediately.

“Hi, baby.”

Trixie’s sitting beside her bed, putting down the book she’d brought with her, giving Katya a sad smile. Her throat is dry, but Katya still manages to croak out a question.

“You knew, didn’t you?”

Her girlfriend nods sadly, reaching out for a hand to hold. Katya isn’t mad. Her eyes are closed again, but Trixie can imagine her rolling them.

“Thank you, I guess.”

Katya sits in silence for a while, and Trixie just watches her. She’s no doubt getting used to her body again, to the new stitches and the tubes. Trixie can’t even look at the IV in her hand, it makes her too nauseous. She’s comforted by knowing Katya probably can’t even feel it yet. She still seems fairly wacked out on painkillers, even if she is awake.

“What happened?”

“Spontaneous cardiac arrest. You’ve got a fancy new pacemaker now, though.”

Trixie tries to sound cheerful about it, tracing the air above Katya’s heart with a finger, careful not to touch.

“Fucking hell. I’m thirty-nine.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe you shouldn’t stress yourself out so much.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Trix.”

The angel just rolls her eyes, stands to pour Katya more water for her parched throat.

In the months since she learnt who Trixie was, Katya’s become more aware of how Trixie is different from a human. Now, she can see her shifting uncomfortably where her wings are crushed down against her back. Katya can’t really bring herself to feel bad – she’s just had her chest cut open.

“I worry, baby.”

“That’s your job, isn’t it?”

Trixie’s fussing with the cups, but Katya manages to weakly grab one of her hands, wincing at the movement of her chest muscles. Trixie moves close enough that Katya doesn’t need to move any more, let her keep the hand.

Trixie has to help her drink, Katya’s still shaking too much to clasp onto the plastic cup of water provided to her at some point while both of them were sleeping. Trixie isn’t supposed to be here, but the nurses couldn’t exactly kick her out. They couldn’t see her. She only reappeared when Katya awoke, panicked she was alone. Even now, Trixie has to laugh, Katya thinks Trixie would have somewhere better to be.

“Did you know what would happen?” Katya asks her,

“So, this is what you came here for, then.”

“Yeah.”

“What happens now?”

Katya looks around the room, like there might be some great show of flames or a bright light, pulling Trixie away from her and back to wherever she came from. Trixie doesn’t seem able to tell her too much about that.

She’s holding onto Trixie’s hand again, hoping her recovering muscles can hold tight enough to keep the angel from leaving, or being taken.

“I can stay. I hope.” 

Katya thinks for a second, staring down at the blue expanse of hospital sheets hiding her lower body.

“When I woke up this morning, and I couldn’t see you…” Trixie doesn’t interrupt. She lets Katya find her own words, although she’s almost certain what they’ll be. “I thought you’d had to go.”

Trixie should’ve gone by now. Every previous client, she was out of there before their time of death was announced. Of course, Katya was no longer really a client. She’d been crossing her fingers for hours, begging higher authorities not to drag her back, away from this woman. Had Katya been stronger, she might have clung to the woman’s body for dear life.

Finally, something happened. Bianca had shown up in Katya’s room around midnight, all flat tones and knowing looks, tall and ethereal and somehow still exuding her ‘done with your shit’-ness. Trixie stares her down, and Bianca speaks first. Even when they were kids, she never could keep her mouth shut. Not when there was an opportunity to tell Trixie “I told you so.”

“You’re done here. Technically.”

She grates out the ‘technically’, already knowing Trixie’s answer.

“I don’t want to go.”

“Figured so.”

The ticking clock in the back of Trixie’s mind is gone. She’d always felt freaked out by that feeling, less of a noise and more of a pounding against her skull. Each second it marked out was a step closer to her heart breaking. It’s blessedly silent, and her stress levels have plummeted down from the stratosphere to the top of Mount Everest. Bianca wasn’t exactly helping, though.

“Will you make me find a new person?”

Bianca snorted, rolling her eyes so hard Trixie wondered if humans around her could sense it.

“I don’t think I could. I always told you that heart of yours was going to be the death of you, though.”

Bianca stares her down, and Trixie tries to match it. It’s funny, to see Bianca trying to be firm. Raising an eyebrow manages to break her though, and Bianca snorts out a laugh. Bianca hates hugs, but Trixie figures she might not get to antagonise her for a while, so she pulls the taller angel close, rubbing her back just to make it seem like a joke.

“Thanks, Bia.”

“You’re welcome, Bea.”

“Come visit me sometimes, yeah?” Trixie’s eyes are watering, even as she smiled. Bianca pulls her closer, the first willing physical affection she can remember from her older cousin. 

“Christ no.”

*

Bianca did visit. Almost once a week, after Katya was discharged from hospital. Sometimes skipping a week just to prove a point to god-knows-who.

Trixie knew Bianca was protecting her. She wasn’t sure what kinds of lies she was spinning, but no other angels had shown up to chide Trixie, and she seemed to still have all the powers she’d enjoyed as a full-blown Guardian Angel.

It was unspoken but Trixie knew, when the need arose, she could go back to her job. In a few decades. She couldn’t bear to think about it, though.

Katya was struggling with unemployment far more than Trixie, tinkering with her laptop all day every day until she finally found a project, pulled a team together and dragged Trixie back to her city apartment with her, packing up the cabin as the snow melted outside.

Seeing where Katya really lived was nothing but jarring to Trixie. She’d never known city Katya, Katya who collapsed onto the bed after a long day, Katya who returned from her rented office four hours too late, tears and snot black from the subway, absolutely exhausted in every way.

She knew Katya liked to be motivated, liked the excitement of chasing a new project, but Trixie was bored. She entertained herself in the city, made Katya take weekends and date nights off work, helped her rediscover the city she’d lived in for so long as a tourist. Katya loved to be the expert. She’d research where they were going, pretend she knew it all already, show Trixie around like a tour guide, love how Trixie hung onto her every word, neglecting to mention if she knew everything Katya was telling her already.

Despite the breaks, the date nights, the weekend getaways, some of Trixie’s days were boring. Katya offered to get her a space in their office, but Trixie really had no interest in staying indoors all day. She couldn’t fault Katya’s loving nature, her attempts to treat Trixie, to be attentive. She just didn’t have time.

In places, it was a rough two years. On a few lonely nights, Trixie toyed with leaving, coming back when Katya was done with this sprint of manic energy, when she was ready to give Trixie her 24/7 again. But that was a big ask, and Trixie recognised that, so she stayed. Her time with Katya would be over in a heartbeat, she wanted to savour what time they did have together.

They’d decided Trixie’s birthday was the winter day where they’d first met. Three years to the day after they first met, Katya presented Trixie with the paperwork which would finally let her leave the city.

Katya’s consultancy upstate, in the town they moved to, was more of a pet project. Where the city hadn’t suited Trixie, this small town did. She made friends. She helped at the schools. She got to look out for people again, all with Katya at her side. She got to try everything she’d missed out on, watching over humans in the saddest parts of their lives. Baking, book clubs, being bad at knitting. 

Everything she wanted was right here. Mostly, she was glad to see Katya happy, engaging with people, working on personal projects which Trixie carefully steered away from business ideas. She knew Katya was happy. She told her so, morning after morning, cooking them breakfast and insisting they stretch out on the balcony. Trixie had done her job. Katya was content. She had everything she needed and more right there in her cabin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would never have been written without the help of my wonderful beta, as always. 
> 
> The two last chapters were posted today. I don't love them, but they're your problem now.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading and kudos - comments are especially loved they make my heart go uwu
> 
> Always taking requests here (comments) and on tumblr, @2Atoms.
> 
> I'm sorry for posting this at 1am.


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